The editors invite scholars from relevant disciplines to submit original research for the proposed collection Evil Women and Mean Girls. The purpose of this edited collection is to explore gendered representations of "evil" in popular culture and history (historical era and geographical region open). Scholars often explore the relationships between gender, sex, and violence through theories of inequality, violence against women, and female victimization, but what happens when women are the perpetrators of violent or harmful behavior? In this volume, we seek to explore the following questions: How do we define "evil"? What makes evil men seem different from evil women? When women commit acts of violence or harmful behavior, how are they represented differently from men? How do perceptions of class, race, and age influence these representations? How have these representations changed over time, and why? What purposes have gendered representations of evil served in culture and history? What is the relationship between gender, punishment of evil behavior, and equality?

Chapter proposals may include, but are not limited to, the following topics: • Criminal women in pop culture, literature, or history • Historical and changing definitions of "evil" behavior for women • Representations of female villains • The sexualization of female violence • Slut-shaming • Gender and bullying, cyberbullying • Women as social dangers • Motherhood • The roles of race, ethnicity, class, religion, and heterosexism in definitions of feminine "evil" • The association between feminism and female violence • The alleged link between hormones, emotions, and female violence • Punishment (legal and/or social) • Female leaders and other public figures • Women in gangs • School cliques

Abstracts of 500-700 words should include: 1. Definition of the topic and concise argument statement 2. A brief description of the cultural context of the topic 3. A brief description of how your article fits into the existing scholarship on the topic

Editor Bios: Keira Williams holds a Ph.D. in History and is an Assistant Professor in the Honors College at Texas Tech University. Her research fields include gender, crime, and popular culture, and she is the author of Gendered Politics in the Modern South: The Susan Smith Case and the Rise of a New Sexism (LSU Press, 2012).

Lynne Fallwell holds a Ph.D. in Modern German History. Her research fields include gender, Nazi medicine, Holocaust and Comparative Genocide, and she is the author of German Midwifery 1885-1960 (Pickering & Chatto, 2013). Currently, she is Director of National and International Scholarships & Fellowships at Texas Tech University.